Because of an easy-to-carry feature, portable sound recorders are used for a variety of sound recording purposes, such as meeting and conference recording, live music recording, wild bird call recording, and water stream sound recording. In general, the portable sound recorder is composed of a body case containing a sound recording mechanism, and one or more microphones exposed from the body case. The microphone converts sounds into electric signals, which are then recorded in a storage medium by the recording mechanism.
A type of conventional portable sound recorder, disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2007-043510, has a pair of left and right microphones in an inverted V arrangement on top of the body case so that their axis lines intersect with each other. This inverted V arrangement enables high-quality sound recording, eliminating an effect called “hole in the middle” where sound in the center of a stereo sound filed becomes weaker than sound on both sides in stereo recording.
In this portable sound recorder, however, the microphone pair projecting in the inverted V shape from the top of the body case easily gets stuck during carriage, and impairs the portability that is an essential feature of portable sound recorders.